School and the sun are out. It's time to take stock before the annual snooze. And here are some mid-year facts to chew on – excavated from 20 years ago, as digital futures first began to impinge on newspaper fortunes. Feel the difference – and then, weirdly, see how little difference exists.

In June 1993, according to ABC figures, the Daily Telegraph sold 1,012,640 copies a day; the Times recorded 362,428, the Guardian 406,517, the Indy some 338,828 and the Financial Times 287,234. And last month? The Telegraph managed 547,106, the Times 390,941, the Guardian 187,000, the Indy 73,060 and the FT 258,488. That means, in print terms, that there are 28,513 more Thunderers rolling around Planet Earth and that the pink one has held up resiliently. But it also means Guardian sales have more than halved, that the Telegraph is in steep decline – and that the Independent has just a fifth of its former strength.

And yet, even in the midst of such seeming turmoil, every one of those five titles remains in business. Indeed, every national title from pre-digital history still drops on a mat near you – with 300,000 or so copies of the i to make up some of the missing numbers. It's not a simple story in many ways. All manner of variances over giveaway copies and foreign sales bedevil ABC comparisons, just as unique browsers and visitors in the online world paint a contrary picture of success.

Nevertheless, there is an eerie stability here. The Telegraph, habitually returning profits in the £50m zone, is not going anywhere soon. It has a formidable online presence, but print will be part of the equation for years, maybe decades, to come. The Times is shrinking staff and losses as it prepares to move away from Wapping under a refettled Murdoch umbrella: but that umbrella has billions to call on when it rains. The FT is profitable – and not for sale. The Independent has seen its familiar lake of red ink begin to drain from £22m to under £12m through two years of retrenchment: but planners are working on a new Indy for the autumn. No one's giving up the ghost.

And, last week, the Guardian and Observer also showed they mean to be around for the long haul: the group developed to sustain them returned to profit, making £22.7m before tax, thus growing the papers' immediate cash and investment fund to £253.7m, while the Guardian and Observer online expanded digital revenues by 29% year on year. There are losses within that – £30.9m as opposed to £44.2m – but, for the first time, digital growth compensated for print advertising and sales decline, which is a story increasingly told these days by the Daily Mail, New York Times and other digital dynamos.

Crucially, too, advertising in general – and even in print – is beginning to recover a little. Authoritative surveys for 2014 set it 2% up for newspapers. There's a little juice in the system, which also means a little more time.

Problems over? That's ridiculous. The Guardian and the FT seem to anticipate a scene where digital first means digital only – where the print version has died. That's not in Telegraph or Times sights yet awhile. Revenue surges need setting in context: £25m from online ads at the Guardian is well worth having – and is only part of the total £56m digital revenue announced last week – but it's only an eighth or so of the money that would help produce a paper profit. The Indy, circulation down nearly 19% in a year and pulling the price lever perforce, risks running out of print and old star names before there's any digital hope of taking some strain.

There is, in short, no survival model – merely dark pathways to tiptoe along. But at least Fleet Street has a moment to stop panicking – a precious moment to think.